


Cargo

by Euregatto



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Alternate Universe, Baby Yabbat, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Featuring Corvus Glaive's A+ Parenting Skills, Such as attempting to eject an infant out the airlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 17:10:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20951933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euregatto/pseuds/Euregatto
Summary: Corvus Glaive detours to a condemned planet and finds a dying woman from another world, who kindly bestows upon him the dreadful task of accidental parenthood.





	Cargo

The signal was coming from the abandoned Kree outpost on Levellan Prime, which had been recently condemned by the Science Division because it was gradually slipping out of its habitable orbit due to an astral quake from a dying star the next system over. Corvus Glaive had no reason to detour his route, especially not for some anomaly on a doomed planet, but—and there always seemed to be a _but_ attached to his timeline of decisions lately—his ship was in need of a new solar cell, so what difference did it make if he fixed it now instead of at the next port?

The outpost had been abandoned by the Kree, yes, but it wasn’t _unoccupied_. Corvus landed on the elevated pad between the four command towers and took the lift down to the main bay, where he found three Levellan Elders gathered around a table. They were most certainly all that was left of their species. The rest had taken to the stars in search of another home, while the elders, those much too old to survive such travel, remained behind until time took what belonged to it.

Perhaps they had gotten visitors before. They didn’t seem at all surprised when a terrifying creature in a black tattered cloak entered the room with a bladed staff in one clawed hand—and he figured he could have killed them and seized the place for himself, though there was nothing to gain in such a coupe—and he asked them, “Do you speak the common tongue?”

“Some,” one elder replied. Her mask had a triangle painted on the forehead. “Many visitors teach us. Need place for rest?”

Corvus gestured out the window. There, the source of the anomaly came into a view—a rift, white with energy, rippling like a pond but inwards. “I’ve come for that. What do you know about it?”

“Nothing,” another elder replied. On his mask, a mark that looked much like a lightning bolt. “Appear last morning. Perhaps message from Yyvan, Maker of Levellan!”

“I see.” He rolled his shoulders. “I’m going to have a look.”

“Take cloth,” the third elder said. On her mask, a series of circles. “Very cold! You freeze.”

Corvus waved her away. “I’ll be fine.”

He went to the door and exited. His body heat formed a protective skein of warmth that kept the cold out, and it took him nearly an hour to get to the rift. The snow slowed him down terribly.

When he arrived, the rift hadn’t moved, but as he approached, it began to tremble. The energy seemed to convulse and all at once a figure formed, a woman, hair like starlight, and she stumbled out into the snow, landing on her knees. The rift began to violently shake. Corvus braced himself for an explosion that didn’t come. Instead, the energy burst inwards, sucking into itself, before disappearing completely. In its place, a small crack in the sky that was healing, slowly.

There was a sizeable gap in the woman’s chest. Blood pooled out, and she cradled an infant in her arms. A babe of perhaps little under one year.

“You,” she said weakly, “Are you with the Swans?”

“Swans?” Corvus scowled. Insolent woman, trying to pass off an infant to his care. He was going to kill them both anyway—or, rather, let the mother die and leave the child to perish. “Were they the ones who did this to you?”

“I’ve been waiting—I thought—please, please take her. They’re _coming_.” The mother tried to get to her knees but sank deeper into the snow, and with her last bit of energy told him, “Please, hide her. Hide my little Yabbat.”

“Is that her name?” Corvus asked, though it was more out of morbid curiosity.

“Yabbat Ummon Turru. Never let her forget that.”

Corvus wanted to object but the woman had already collapsed into the snow, exposing the infant against her chest. Blood seeped out into the pristine white. The child was still in her night gown, covered in her mother’s viscera, but perhaps not her own, and seemed quiet, as if unaware of what was going on around her.

After a minute of vigorous inner turmoil, Corvus bent down and snapped the woman’s fingers open. Then, a shimmer of gold. There was a key, bound to a leather strip, hanging from the baby’s neck.

Reluctantly, he lifted Yabbat Ummon Turru from the corpse and into his arms.

Corvus sat on a rock and stared at the cooling body of the mother; he set his glaive against one shoulder and then lowered the baby in his lap. She pressed her little hand to the weapon’s polearm, admiring her distorted reflection in its golden surface. “Yabbat,” he said, testing the word on his tongue. “Do I not scare you, little one? I have the visage of monsters.”

She gazed up at him. Her cheeks were much too chubby. Well-fed. Gods above, he’d have to feed this fucking thing, and change its clothes, and teach it the many languages of the universe. Thing was, he had experience with children. He’d helped raise his brother and done everything on the _unexpected parenting _list plenty of times before. Still, he was no longer living a life that could accommodate to such a burden.

“I’m giving you to the Shi'ar,” he told her thinly. “Or perhaps I can eject you into the vacuum of space.”

The child pulled herself up his chest, resting her little head against his shoulder.

_Ah, shit._

~

He wrapped Yabbat in his cloak, held her to his chest, and carried her back to the elders, who swooned the moment he stepped through the threshold of the door. They half-listened to his explanation, ignoring the key details in favor of believing this child to be a gift sent to him by their maker, and while he searched the compound for the cells to repair his ship so he could leave this condemned ice ball, they took care of the infant. She didn’t even seem to notice that her mother was dead.

(Potentially her whole family, her whole race. She didn’t look anything like an alien species he’d seen before and that rift wasn’t created from technology he’d ever used.)

Eventually, the Triangle-masked elder forced him to lend a hand. “Is your child!” She exclaimed, though it wasn’t necessarily scolding.

“What? She’s not—”

“Come, come!”

He just had to make it through _one_ forsaken night.

It was easy to get some of it done with the elders’ help. The child was stripped of her bloodied and soiled clothes, which were tossed into the incinerator, and they put her in a water basin normally meant for scrubbing blood out of armor. There was a waist-height ledge in one of the bathroom cubicles, which Corvus used to keep Yabbat propped up somewhere easy to handle. He removed his vambraces, rolled up his sleeves, and used his soap to try to keep the child clean.

She thankfully didn’t cry, or fuss. Instead she gazed up at his face in wonder. A well-behaved little thing, which made Corvus doubtful of her later years, should he not deem it necessary to eat her.

Afterwards, he wrapped her in a cloth typically used to patch tears, and turned it into a fairly decent pair of soiling pants. The male elder made more of similar style, and a new gown, and the women went to mash fruits and vegetables into food for his trip to the next port. He’d probably sell the child there, to just about anyone.

While one of the elders fed Yabbat, Corvus lined an old crate with linens and stuffed it with an old pillow, a make-shift bed of sorts, good enough for one night. Then, he laid her down to sleep, and folded himself onto a nearby cot that smelled unused and musty.

In the dim light, Corvus lifted the key and inspected it. The engravings were intricate. As unique as a source password, no doubt—but where it went, whatever it unlocked, he didn’t think he’d ever know.

_"Are you with the Swans?"_

Corvus pressed his lips together. Regardless of whether or not he passed this child off to someone else somewhere else, one thing was certain:

Whoever these Swans were, they couldn’t get to Yabbat.

~

In the middle of the night, he awoke to the baby fussing, and despite his best to attempt ignore her, she began to cry. He rolled himself out of the cot, considered killing the wretched thing, and then conceded to his own instincts; he went to Yabbat's crate and lifted her up in his arms.

“Shush,” he uttered, laying her against his chest and patting her back. “If I don’t get enough rest, I’ll have to send you to be with your mother.”

That seemed to do the trick. Yabbat ceased whining almost immediately and fell quickly asleep, her tiny hand grasping his cloak.

Corvus traversed the room to the window and saw in the skies above the constellation Cygnus, the Swan. He continued to hold her, and decided that tomorrow, he’d send a message to the only person he could ever confide in.

~

The next morning, the elders fed Yabbat and entertained her while Corvus finished fixing the ship for jump, and even though he had half a brain to leave Yabbat there to perish, he strapped her into the copilot’s seat and took off. For most of the ride she was entertained solely by the movement of the passing stars outside the window, and chewed absently on the little stuffed doll one of the elders had given her.

He made it to the next station in under a day, and instead of selling her off like every cell in his brain demanded him to, he sold his stolen wares and avoided a member of the Shadow Guild, then reinvested some of his credits into simple clothes and food supplies for little Yabbat.

Almost miraculously, she slept through most of the trip.

~

That night, Corvus splayed himself out on the roof of his starship and gazed up at the constellation Cygnus.

Yabbat cooed beside him. She kept reaching for the ships that crossed the sky like meteorites, and he rolled onto his side to take a second look at her and wondered about what he was going to do. He’d taken care of children before, and though they had a terrible stench about them he could hardly handle, Yabbat smelled _different_—otherworldly, like ash and air.

Something told him, quite absurdly, that she wasn’t from this universe at all.

_A fool's thought, _Corvus told himself, and mulled over his options once more. He could hand her off to the Shi'ar, now that he was in the outskirts of their empire's territory. Maybe he could let the Kree purchase her for one of their secret science experiments they boldly assumed remained secret. Or eat her, if he got hungry enough.

He wasn't exactly suited for the parental roll. 

As if to counter all his thoughts, Yabbat grabbed his foreclaw in her tiny hand and fell asleep this way, holding him near her. He allowed it on the basis that refusing the physical contact would most certainly set her off, and gods knew he was _not_ in the mood for dealing with a screaming child right now.

_The Shadow Guild loves orphans like you._

He shook his head. No, that wasn't a life he'd want for her.

Eventually, Corvus returned inside to put Yabbat to bed, before sprawling out on his own and forcing himself to get some semblance of rest.


End file.
